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HISTORY AS IT HAPPENED

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Monday, May 04, 2015

I suspect that Mick Keelty, John Howard and Philip Ruddock
are pleased that the two Bali Nine boys were shot to death in the early hours
of Wednesday morning of the 29 April 2015 as it finalises a plan first hatched
back in April 2005.

It was then that Lee Rush, the father of Scott Rush, one of
the gang members of a drug smuggling operation, realising that his son was
about to fly to Bali in order to bring drugs back to Australia, contacted the
Australian Federal Police via a lawyer friend to inform them of what was about
to happen with a view of getting the AFP to stop Scott Rush from boarding that
aircraft to Bali. The AFP assured Robert Myers, the lawyer friend of Lee Rush,
that Scott would be stopped before leaving the country. It didn’t happen. Scott
Rush was allowed to leave Australia to fly to Bali.

Instead of warning Scott Rush off, who could then warn off
the other members of the smuggling team, the AFP instead tipped off their
Indonesian counterparts warning them that the smuggling team was about to
arrive just before Scott Rush boarded the
flight to Bali on 8 April 2005. Nine days later Rush and three others were
arrested at Denpasar airport as they were about to leave for the return journey
home. Chan and Sukumaran were also arrested at Denpasar airport. Three others
were arrested at their hotel as they were preparing to leave.

So, what happened?

Clearly, instead of warning the gang that if they proceeded
with their plan they would be arrested by the Indonesian police and charged
with smuggling offences, the AFP decided to allow the gang to go ahead with
their plan knowing that the consequences would likely end with at least one or
two of the gang being sentenced to death by shooting.

So, why did Mick Keelty let them go ahead with their plan
knowing that they would be caught and suffer the consequences?

In fact, it would not have been Keelty’s call to allow the
gang to go ahead with their plan especially in light of the probability that at
least one or two of them would likely receive the death penalty. Keelty would,
at least, have consulted with the Attorney General of the day, Philip Ruddock
who, in turn would have consulted the Prime Minister, John Howard.

It was at this point that I believe Howard and Ruddock,
despite their declared stance against the death penalty, made the decision to
allow the smuggling operation to go ahead knowing that it would be thwarted and
that as a consequence of the trials that would follow one or more of the nine
involved would receive the death penalty. Furthermore, as I stated at the time,
regardless of the appeals against the sentences and the pleas for clemency as
the time for execution approached, at least one or two of the gang would
ultimately be executed. I further suggested that this would happen regardless of
whatever else happened and that it would happen because of some kind of
agreement between the Howard government and the Indonesian government in order
to deter Australians from smuggling drugs from Indonesia to Australia. That
plan has now been carried through to completion.

My evidence supporting this assertion is circumstantial
though, once known, seems to be compelling especially in the light of what has
happened.

Howard first spoke of the affair on 10 April 2005 at a
doorstop interview at the Great Hall of the People whilst visiting China
negotiating a Free Trade Agreement between Australia and China when a
journalist asked Howard “…what’s the significance of the… operation that has
led to eight men being charged with…”. “What is the significance of it?” Howard
asked. “Yes”, said the journalist, to which Howard replied:

“Well the operational aspects of
that should be commented upon by the Australian Federal Police. I didn't know
anything about it and nor should I until the people were arrested. It is normal
for the Australian Federal Police to cooperate with the Indonesian police if
they have reason to believe that people have broken the law. I would always
encourage the Australian Federal Police to cooperate with their counterparts in
neighbouring countries in the apprehension of suspected drug offenders. But as
to the details of this particular case I know nothing other than that nine
people have been arrested, that they are entitled like anybody else to a
presumption of innocence, I hope they will be dealt with fairly and justly by
the process, the charges are very serious and there's quite a number of
Australians involved, nine, it's a large number. This is a matter though for
the courts, the Indonesian authorities, but I endorse very strongly, very
strongly indeed, cooperation between the Australian Federal Police and the
Indonesian authorities in trying to track down people who are trafficking in
drugs.”

The journalist pushed Howard
further: “Prime Minister, is it possible that as a consequence of this joint
operation involving the AFP that Australians could face the death penalty...”
but, before the journalist could finish, Howard interrupted saying, “Jim, I'm
not going to start making comments that in any way bear upon this particular
case, that would be inappropriate, I think you know that.”[1]

Clearly, Howard was already very
familiar with the case and was aware of the significance of it, particularly
with regard to the use of the death penalty but did not want to discuss it at
that time.

According to Bob Myers, the
barrister friend of Lee Rush, father of Scott Rush, “the AFP had all the
evidence they needed to arrest the nine before they left Australia on a heroin
smuggling mission. Instead it (the AFP) let them travel to Bali and then told
Indonesian police about the crime they were about to commit”. [2]
In a statement to the media on 4 May 2015, Commissioner of the AFP, Andrew
Colvin, said: “We can’t
apologise for the role that we have to try to stop illicit drugs from coming
into this community.”[3] But,
if that is the case, why did the AFP not warn the Bali Nine that they knew of
their plot to bring drugs into Australia. It’s not enough to simply state that
the AFP didn’t have enough evidence to arrest them before leaving for Bali.
They could just as easily have brought them in for questioning where they could
have been warned of the consequences of going ahead with their plan and in
particular the possibility that they may even face the death penalty if caught
with drugs. To say there was not enough evidence to arrest them is a complete
furphy. They needn’t have even been arrested; just simply brought in and told
that the AFP knew what was going on and if they went ahead with their plan they
would in all likelihood be arrested in Bali.

The next question is: Was it Mick
Keelty’s decision alone to hand over the Bali Nine Australians on a plate to
the Indonesian police knowing full well that they may well end up facing a
firing squad? Would Keelty have had that kind of authority to make such a
decision knowing how serious the political repercussions might be? Keelty would
at least have had to consult the Attorney General, Philip Ruddock, about the
case before contacting the Indonesian authorities about the plan - especially
in cases where the death penalty is a possibility. Philip Ruddock in turn would
have then needed to discuss the situation with John Howard who was in China at
the time.

Judging by the response that Howard gave to questions about
the affair at that doorstop interview in Beijing, Howard had certainly already
been briefed on the matter and was clearly keen to pass the buck of responsibility
back to the AFP accompanied by some carefully considered words about the ‘presumption
of innocence’ and the hope ‘that they would be dealt with fairly and justly’ by
the Indonesian legal system. In other words, as far as John Howard was
concerned, the matter was fait accompli
since the Bali Nine were now in the hands of the Indonesian authorities.

It seems now that a certain unnamed AFP officer who asked to
be taken off the case because of his concerns about the possibility of the
death sentence being involved will become the fall guy for this whole sorry
affair in an attempt to absolve Ruddock and Howard of any responsibility. The
reality however, is that it was Howard, Ruddock and Keelty who between them
deliberately set up at least two of the Bali Nine for execution so as to deter
other Australians from bringing drugs to Australia despite their claims of
finding the death sentence abhorrent.

Friday, March 13, 2015

One could be forgiven for thinking that the election of a popular
Democrat president in 2008 who had promised peace and an end to the wars in Iraq
and Afghanistan, that the world could have looked forward to peaceful days
ahead. Instead the war in Iraq has backfired on the US and has led directly to
the mess the Middle East now finds itself in as the Islamic State (IS) spreads
its poison across the region. All that President Obama seems to have achieved
is to postpone what now seems to be the inevitable explosion that will likely occur
after he has gone.

Obama’s failure to stabilise the Middle East stems directly from his
inability to insist that Palestine be given statehood in a territory that is
not subordinate to Israel in any way. His protests to Israel over settlement
building in the West Bank have been completely ignored. His failure to see that
Netanyahu and his fellow right-wing Zionists within the Israeli government have
never had any intention of allowing Palestine to become a sovereign state –
despite the pretence of ‘talks’ that kept Secretary of State Hillary Clinton
and later John Kerry needlessly on the go for years – has brought only misery
and poverty to the Palestinian people as the Israelis destroyed their homes in
the
Gaza Strip and taken their freedom and lands in the West Bank. Meanwhile, the
‘Arab Spring’ saw the disintegration of Syria, Libya and Egypt. As the Syrian
civil war turned into something akin to the Spanish Civil War where foreign
fighters flocked to fight governments and then each other as it degenerated
into a bloodbath where thousands died, Obama was unable to prevent Iraq from
being sucked into the vortex of so-called ‘Islamic extremism’.

Obama’s failure was his inability to see how inevitable this all was. Obama’s
inability to resist Israeli demands that the Syrian revolution against
President Bashir al-Assad be supported by the US meant that the violence there
escalated out of control as the various factional interests fighting against
al-Assad’s government began to polarise into powerful groups that eventually
coalesced into what we see there today; a pseudo-religious anarchical-fascist
phenomenon that seems to be growing exponentially. And initially all this was
allowed to happen because of Israel and America’s support for just about anyone
fighting al-Assad and his allies Hezbollah and Iran.

Now the situation has become almost out of control. Feeding the
so-called ‘Islamists’ is the US and their allies’ air attacks against IS in
Iraq and Syria which seems to achieve nothing except infuriate the extremists
to the point where they become ever more blood-thirsty in the lands they occupy
and threaten to attack those countries that attack them using violent acts of
terrorism. Right-wing Western governments, including Canada, New Zealand and
Australia, have pledged support to the effort to confront IS thus exposing the
peoples of those nations to retaliation.

Obama has found himself in a strange place where he knows that
Americans are fed up with war. Iraq cost America dearly. Obama knows he can’t
go to war again for Israel as Netanyahu has demanded. Iran is not Iraq. While
Iran supports al-Assad in Syria, Obama has kept that issue away from his
attempts to find a way to ensure Iran does not have a nuclear weapons program.
Obama, rightly, regards diplomacy and negotiation as the way to settle the
issue while the Republican warhawks, the neoconservatives and the Christian
Zionists of the Western world together with the right-wing Zionists of Israel would
prefer to use force. They regard Iran’s nuclear program as an ‘existential
threat’ to Israel.

For years Israel has accused Iran of having a nuclear weapons program
and that Iran is hell-bent on ‘wiping Israel off the map’. Netanyahu has not
let go of this meme and now, as Obama’s presidency comes into its final months
before in the run up to the 2016 Presidential elections, the warhawks in both
the US and Israel begin clamouring again for action against Iran.

Helping their cause is the rampant growth of IS atrocities, military
successes, and apparent attraction of their cause to Muslim youths trapped in a
Western world that they see as Islamophobic and which has evolved into a
vicious cycle of mutual hatred – one that ultimately the disaffected youth that
are caught up in it cannot win. It is only a matter of time before the Western
nations led by a Republican US government dominated by warhawks and
neoconservatives go all out to crush IS in its tracks.

Meanwhile, Israel, buoyed by both a renewed militarism in the US and a
revitalised alliance with Israel that would characterise a Republican
administration, would, with the full support of the US and its Western allies,
deal with its own enemies Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

For the warhawks, Republicans and their extreme right-wing allies both
in Israel and within the Western world, the up-coming elections in Israel and
the 2016 presidential elections will be crucial.

In Israel, the 17 March elections will likely return a staunchly pro-Zionist
government into office no matter who wins – and one should remember that
virtually the entire Israeli political system is right-wing compared to other
so-called Western democracies. One should not be lulled into thinking that any
party in Israel labelled as ‘left-wing’ is actually left-wing. The reality is
that it’s simply not as right-wing as many of the ultra-nationalist extreme
right-wing parties that envisage a Greater Israel free off all Arabs and
including an annexed Gaza Strip and West Bank.

Neoconservatives in the US are already promoting their preferred
Republican candidates with Jeb Bush being seriously backed by the big money
donators. Scott Walker is also in the Republican frame being backed by the
neoconservatives.

On 20 January 2017 the world’s political landscape is likely to
suddenly change for the worse if a foreign policy focussed Republican wins the
presidential election, a right-wing nationalist Israeli government is formed
after the coming 17 March elections, and no significant inroads towards the
defeat of IS has occurred.

For the people of the US, while they’d prefer to keep out of wars, the
atrocities being committed in the Middle East by IS may prove to be a tipping
point for many voters who may find a Republican promise to put an end to the
reign of IS hard to resist. They may well fall again for the promise of a quiet
Middle East once Iran and IS have been dealt with – just as they did in 2003.

As
the Obama years draw to a close and his promises of a lasting peace shattered,
so the warhawks, neocons and their allies around the world with their delusions
of Western Exceptionalism will once again bring the world to the brink of
catastrophe in the Middle East – and possibly even beyond the brink.

Friday, March 06, 2015

You could be forgiven for thinking that the Israeli extreme right must
be nuts for being so obsessed about Iran when the Islamic State (IS), a far
more bloodthirsty and ruthless organisation that borders on being an
anarchistic-fascist organisation hell bent on destroying anything and
everything that doesn’t conform to its beliefs, is almost at Israel’s northern
borders. Rest assured, however, that there is method in Israel’s apparent
madness.

The Israelis for years, indeed, long before IS came along, have
considered Iran as their mortal enemy accusing them of wanting nothing less
than the destruction of Israel. To reinforce this notion, Israel accuses Iran
of developing nuclear weapons for the sole purpose of attacking and destroying
Israel. Israel says that ‘Iran is an existential threat’ to Israel, a call
repeated only recently by Netanyahu when he addressed the US Congress in
Washington on Tuesday 4 March 2015.

The world, on the other hand, tends to think differently. Apart from
the fact that there is no evidence whatsoever that Iran has a nuclear weapons
program, the US, Britain, France, Russia, China and Germany, the so-called
P5+1, believe that Iran can be prevented from the possibility of moving toward being
nuclear armed by a mixture of negotiation and sanctions. These negotiations,
instigated by the US under Obama’s administration, have all but destroyed
Israel’s aspirations to get the US to attack Iran ostensibly to destroy Iran’s
nuclear facilities but in reality to affect regime change in Iran.

For Israel and their Republican and neoconservative supporters in the
US, regime change in Iran is essential because it would strip Israel’s enemies
at home, Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, of
their ability to resist Israeli aspirations to create a Greater Israel that
includes annexing the Gaza Strip, the West Bank and possibly even southern
Lebanon up to the Litani River. Regime change in Iran will also effectively put
a halt to Iranian hegemony and influence throughout other regions of the Middle
East including Syria, Iraq and the Yemen. This would then allow a right-wing
led future US government to launch a full-scale offensive against IS and what
remains of Bashir al-Assad’s government in Syria while Israel launch all-out
attacks against Hamas and Hezbollah.

All this though requires a change of political scenery in the US; a
change that could well occur at the next US Presidential election in November
of next year.

Jeb Bush, George W. Bush’s brother, has already thrown his hat in the
ring for nomination as the Republican candidate and has taken on advisors who
are well known Zionist supporting neoconservatives. Israel has an election
coming up on 17 March this year and it is likely that the right-wing of Israeli
politics will prevail with Netanyahu a strong possibility of retaining the
Prime Ministership and, if not Netanyahu, then, in what I consider to be the
worst case scenario, the Zionist extremist Avigdor Liebermann who has called
for regime change in Iran, the invasion and annexation of the Gaza Strip and
the West Bank, and the destruction of Hezbollah.

It seems clear to me that the purpose of Netanyahu’s provocative speech
to Congress last Tuesday was to pave the way for a drastic realignment of US
foreign policy after the US Presidential elections in 2016, a realignment that
favours Israeli plans for the future of the Middle East returning hegemony
firmly back in the hands of the US and Israel and rendering Iran’s influence
null and void thus realising Israel’s dream of creating a Greater Israel.

Tuesday, February 03, 2015

The execution of Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran is imminent and, as
the Indonesian ambassador to Australia Nadjib
Kesoema has said, ‘the situation was final’ and there was ‘nothing Australia
could do to save Chan and Sukumaran from the firing squad’.

The reality, however, is that there was never any intention of Australia
doing anything to save them from a firing squad in the first place. Right from
the very moment the Bali Nine set foot on the aircraft in Australia that took
them to Bali they were doomed. If the Australian government wanted to save them
from the firing squad then they would never have let them get aboard that
aircraft knowing full well what the Bali Nine were planning and what the
consequences were going to be.

Right from the very beginning of this sorry saga I
have argued that the Bali Nine were deliberately set up and that the Australian
Federal Police (AFP) and the Australian government at the highest levels,
including the Prime Minister at the time, John Howard, and the AFP chief at the
time, Mick Keelty, together with then Attorney-General Philip Ruddock,
conspired with the Indonesian authorities to have the Bali Nine caught
red-handed smuggling drugs and that in the subsequent trials the ringleaders
would be sentenced to death and ultimately executed. The intention as far as
the Australian government and the AFP were concerned is to let the executions
serve as a deterrent to other Australians thinking of smuggling drugs in or out
of Indonesia or, indeed, any other country that has the death penalty for
dealing in drugs.

Australia hasn’t been anywhere near forceful enough in its dealings
with the Indonesians in trying to save the lives of Chan and Sukumaran. Both Howard
then and Abbott today have done nothing to try and save their lives other than
plead personally to the Indonesian presidents of the time to commute the death
sentences. Both have claimed they respect the laws of other nations and also
have said they did not want to upset the good relationship between Indonesia
and Australia and can do nothing more than make personal pleas to the
Indonesian president.

But these are hollow words. They claim to respect the laws of other
nations, but do they really? This so-called respect doesn’t extend to countries
that execute gays as in Iran and Saudi Arabia, which successive Australian
governments have vigorously criticised, yet ignores other countries that execute
innocent prisoners or execute those whose crimes were committed when they
were just
children or execute those who are clearly intellectually
disabled all of which happens all too often in the United States.

The hypocrisy of the Australian government continues as the Abbott
government completes the task Howard, Ruddock and Keelty set out to achieve; to
deliberately have Australians executed despite having no death penalty in Australia
and allow an Indonesian firing squad to become Australia’s proxy executioners.

Wednesday, September 24, 2014

While the forerunners and later derivative groups of what is now ISIS,
or IS as they now prefer to call themselves, were busy fighting Israel’s enemy
in Syria, Israel and the US together with their Western allies were content to
let the al-Assad regime forces and the Islamists slug it out between them. Both
sides remain, however, the enemy of Israel. But, as the civil war in Syria
progressed, so the various Islamist forces ranged against al-Assad began to coalesce.
Though still not quite fully united, the group that now calls itself the
Islamic State has emerged by far the most influential. It has grown almost exponentially
over the last twelve months or so and has now spread itself into Iraq where it
has become a regional threat as it continues to collect more and more fighters
both locally and from overseas.

But its growth has now reached a tipping point. Not only is it a threat
to the already unstable politics of Iraq as the movement expands eastward out
of Syria into Iraq, but it has now also become a threat to Israel as Israel and
its Western allies begin to realise that IS hasn’t taken its eye off the ball
in western Syria where it borders with the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.

So far the Islamists that have flocked to the so-called ‘Islamic State’
forces have been busy consolidating their forces in the territories they now
occupy where they are using local recruits to slowly expand holdings in order
to build and establish their ‘caliphate’.

However, in western Syria the IS are now also beginning to become
influential and the Israeli fear of having them on their border has startled
the Israeli government and, just to assure IS that Israel is still a potent
force, Israeli yesterday demonstrated its potency by shooting down a Syrian jet
strike aircraft when it strayed over the border into Golan Heights airspace on
the very same day that the US and their allies attacked IS targets in Syria.
With the US attacking IS and Israel demonstrating there is no let up in its
desire to see al-Assad gone, it’s clear that Israel remains intent on not allowing
the polarising of forces fighting each other in Syria to influence its own long
term strategic goals of defeating both the so-called ‘Islamist’ extremists on
one side and al-Assad and his allies Hezbollah and Iran on the other.

It’s also clear that Israel and the US, together with their allies,
have colluded with each other to define a strategy to defeat a direct threat to
Israel without letting it be seen that the West and its allies are taking the
battle to the IS in Syria in order to protect Israel. It could very well be the
reason why Netanyahu called a sudden halt to the onslaught against the Gaza
Strip at a time just when his extreme right-wing partners in his government
were calling for the complete occupation of the Gaza Strip and the destruction
of Hamas.

As the ceasefire in the Gaza was announced almost unilaterally by
Netanyahu there was barely a murmur of protest from the extreme right-wing.
Something clearly had upset Netanyahu’s plans for the Gaza Strip. Could it have
been the growing threat of the IS potentially coming to Israel’s doorstep in
the Golan Heights? It certainly seems that way.

Friday, September 19, 2014

According to this
Guardian reportAbbott has ‘played down the possibility that
Australia’s renewed involvement in Iraq would increase the chance of terror
plots against Australian targets. He said Australia was targeted in Bali in
2002 before any involvement in the previous Iraq war’.

This is utter nonsense. All Abbott is
attempting here is to mimic John Howard’s ridiculous attempt to hoodwink the
Australian people over the reasons for the Bali bombings.

Today’s terror threats – if, indeed, there
really are any – are as a direct result of this government’s plans to send
Australian forces to Islamic lands for the purpose of killing so-called ‘Islamic’
militants. And, while the Bali bombings did happen some six months before
Howard joined the US in invading and destroying Iraq in March 2003, the
bombings occurred because the Indonesian militants that were responsible for
the bombings knew, just like all Australians knew, that, despite all of Howards
worthless denials at the time about not having made a decision about going to
Iraq, that there was never any doubt that he would. Howard
used the Bali bombings for his own political purposes and may even have
manipulated circumstances to have allowed the outrage to occur.

For Abbott to infer that the present threat
level isn’t as a response to Abbott’s plans to enjoin the US in their fight
against so-called ‘Islamist’ militants is downright garbage. And, in light of
the way Howard used the Bali bombings to suit his political agenda, one has to
wonder to what extent threats today in Australia haven’t been contrived to suit
Abbott’s political agenda.

Wednesday, September 17, 2014

Last month I
suggested that Australian SAS forces were already in Iraq. I suggested this
based on the assertion by an American neoconservative writers indiscreet wording
in an article that said, “Western commandos such as Seal Team Six, Delta Force
and the British and Australian SAS should also expand operations to
carry out the kind of intelligence-driven leadership targeting that was an
important part of the 2007-2008 surge”. The use of the word ‘expand’ and the
tone of the narrative hinted that Australian SAS, together with other Special
Forces, were already deployed to the region.

Today, Mark Kenny, the Sydney Morning Herald’schief
political editor writes: “While a contingent of SAS commandos departed for
the Middle East on Monday, Fairfax Media understands several SAS commandos have
been in the region on standby for weeks.” What ‘standby’ means is anybody’s
guess but I can’t imagine for one moment that they’ve been idle but, regardless
of whatever they have been up to, their presence earlier on and long before any
formal announcements made by Abbott regarding Australia’s involvement in the
region indicates that Abbott had committed Australia to enjoin the US long
before there was any debate on the matter.

Kenny also goes on to write: “Mr Abbott said the fact that the
legitimate government of Iraq had invited Australia to assist in defeating an
insurgent force, made Australia's participation in the air and ground war legal”.
While Abbott concedes there are legal problems associated with operating with
allies inside Syria, he doesn’t rule entirely rule out the possibility saying, “I’m
not ruling some action is Syria but it is not part of the government current
intentions because, as I’ve said quite frequently over the past few days, the
legalities of operations in Syria are quite different from the legalities of
operations in Iraq”. However, when he was telling Australians and the
parliament a few weeks ago that he’d made no decision about Australia becoming
involved in Iraq, it’s obvious that he clearly had already decided what Australia’s
role would be in Iraq. Why, then should he be believed when he says that going
into Syria is not part of the Australian government’s intentions? And can we
not question weather or not Australian SAS forces aren’t already in Syria as
well as Iraq?

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About Me

is an Aeronautical Engineer, Historian and general carer of what goes on in the world.
Apart from an earlier career in engineering, Lataan also has a First Class Honours BA degree in History and a PhD in International Politics.
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